Oh c’mon. How could the designers have foreseen that the sun would set?
Ironically, this plant produces power for approximately eight hours AFTER the sun sets, because the boilers stay hot that long.
And it's still losing money!
The operators claim that it hasn't been as sunny as they thought it would be. Let me just say that there probably aren't many places on Earth that are sunnier than the Mojave Desert. If it isn't sunny enough here, it isn't sunny enough anywhere.
I Can't quote numbers, but Thermal-Solar needs direct sunlight to reflect onto the boiler to heat the liquid. Even a thin overcast renders it non-functional. Photovoltaic, on the other hand, can produce SOME power, even on a cloudy day, but produces nothing after the sun sets. The fact that Thermal-Solar can continue to produce electricity for eight hours after the sun sets was supposed to be the great leap forward.
Damn those little puffy clouds, anyway!!!